Big Fish
by Doyle-sb4
Summary: Cordelia thinks it's a date. Wesley hasn't noticed.


Title: Big Fish  
Author: Doyle  
Pairing: Cordelia/Wesley  
Rating: PG  
Notes: For the Wes canon ficathon for **nakedwesley**. Set during season 3. Request was 'Wes and Cordy going to dinner. To her it's a date. He's clueless.'

Cordelia Chase was, without a doubt, one of the most perfect creatures he had ever laid eyes on.

She was exquisite; fork poised in the air above her plate, she was holding forth on… something. Xander? Oh, the young friend of Buffy's. Cordelia had been cataloguing his faults (legion) for several minutes now, and while Wesley hadn't listened to half of it, he had thoroughly enjoyed hearing her speak.

"That's it," she concluded. "I've so had it with little boys who think they have some ounce of cool just because their best friend fights vampires."

Wesley flinched, years of training telling him that she shouldn't be discussing the Slayer so loudly in a public place, but he promptly forgot all about it when she fixed him with a sultry look and said, "From now on, I'm only interested in men."

Flustered, he pretended to gain a sudden fascination for his filet mignon with sauce bearnaise. Cordelia had no idea of the effect she had on him. A sweet, innocent girl, she had merely asked him to dinner to help her with some sort of homework project about England - or the English language, he wasn't entirely sure - and would no doubt be horrified to know the sort of thoughts he was harbouring about her. He was a grown man and she was still in secondary school, for god's sake.

The thought that she was no student of his, and that she was a full two years over the age of consent in England, had prodded its way to the front of his mind several times now. Had Wesley been a paranoid man - any more so than anyone who survived first form at Watchers' Academy, anyway - he might have been inclined to decide that the universe had it in for him.

"Anyway," Cordelia said, tucking into her salad, "tell me more about you. What's England like?"

He searched in vain for something that might be of interest to a vibrant, cosmopolitan American girl. "What you'd expect, really. Damp. Cold, compared to here… I'm sure you'd find it dull."

"Oh, no way, I'd love to go to London some day. My dad wanted to pay for me to go last summer but you know what it's like, going on vacation by yourself. I'd want to go there with someone, y'know? Somebody who knew all the best places." There was that look again. This time he feigned distraction in the wine list, but that merely reminded him that his dinner companion was too young to drink.

"I was based in London, of course," he said. "At the Council Headquarters in Bloomsbury." Here he was back on firmer ground. The Council, his position, they were the constants, the things he could depend on. "It's a great honour to be chosen as the Watcher of an active Slayer. But then, I was Head Boy at the Academy."

"Uh-huh," she said. "So anyway, did you know I was almost Homecoming Queen this year?"

-----------

It was a pleasant evening. He supposed they were all pleasant; from what he'd seen of it thus far, California didn't seem to have weather as such, more an unvarying spell of clemency.

In another town they might have walked. The Hellmouth's nightlife made it out of the question, notwithstanding the stake cunningly concealed underneath his suit jacket. He'd practised, and he could almost withdraw it smoothly; he would have been far more comfortable with some sort of projectile weapon, but those were harder to conceal, and not regulation.

"Well, here we are," he said, stopping the car and trying his best not to look intimidated at the size of the house. It was no bigger than his family's home - smaller, most likely - but there was something so new and American about it.

She slipped off her seatbelt but made no move to open the door. Perhaps she was waiting for him to open it for her, he thought, and fumbled with his own restraint. He still wasn't used to sitting on this side of the car.

"I had a really good time tonight," she said.

"Yes, so did I. I wasn't much help with your homework, I'm afraid."

"No, it was great," she assured him. "Lots of interesting material."

He swallowed. "Er. I'm sure your parents must be wondering where you are."

She waved a dismissive hand. "They're not home. My dad had some emergency meeting at work and my mom's at her Botox party. Probably gave the help the night off."

The house was dark. "Are you sure you're all right by yourself?"

"Well, if you want to come in…"

"No!" He coughed, and lowered his voice. "No, I don't think that would be," wise, appropriate, sane, "a good idea. But I could walk you to the front door, if you'd like?"

She liked, and he did. One hand ready to go to the stake, he waited while she unlocked the door and was safely over the threshold.

Eyebrows slightly raised, she seemed to be waiting for something. He remembered his manners. "Thank you for a charming evening. I'm sure I'll see you tomorrow."

He thought she pursed her lips in irritation, but then the expression was gone and she smiled. "Sure. Tomorrow. Great."

"Another scintillating day of trying to coax cooperation from Buffy and Faith," he tried to joke, but it fell flat, too much truth in his tone.

"They really get to you, don't they?"

"It's not important," he lied. "I was trained for far, far worse than mere disrespect. Rogue slayers, dark slayers…"

"Slayers who climb on rocks." She'd been casting glances his way all night, but now, it seemed, her eyes held an empathy he hadn't seen before. "Who cares what Buffy's gang thinks? Trust me, on the high school food chain of cool, they're plankton."

"What would that make you?" he asked, amused.

Posed in the doorway in that red frock, she looked like a film star. "Way too big for this pond," she said, and the kiss she landed on his cheek came too unexpectedly for him to think of the impropriety or stammer his way out of it. "Goodnight, Wes."

"Goodnight," he quietly told the closed door. "Goodnight."


End file.
